Aperture Science Department Singalong
by vifetoile89
Summary: A festive six-part journey through Aperture Science for the holidays, featuring Cave Johnson, Caroline, the cores, Doug Rattman, the co-op bots, and a little Chell/Wheatley. Written for the Portal Secret Santa.
1. What is Christmas?

Christmas: Christmas is a holiday falling on Dec. 25. In most of the Western World, it is considered miserly to deny workers a Christmas holiday; it is therefore advised that Aperture Science allow a holiday for Dec. 24, Dec. 25, and Dec. 26, to avoid mutiny.

_Inquiry: What is Boxing Day? Boxes=Cubes=Storage Cubes? What do the English know that we don't? Make inquiries._

ADDENDUM: After consulting with our colleagues in the animation business, it has been decided that Dec. 24 and "Boxing Day" do not count. Award holidays as you deem fit, but reserve Dec. 25 or risk being locked in your own office with no provisions save one fruitcake.

ADDENDUM: It is now considered preferable by far to have Aperture Science running full time, at full capacity, three hundred sixty five days a year with one extra day for Leap Years (nice try, Tammie).

There is still a risk of mutiny if employees are made to work on Christmas Day and its alleged partners (Christmas Eve, Cubing Day – note: Boxing Day has been renamed "Cubing Day," to promote solidarity). Managers are encouraged to permit, indulge, and even participate in the following activities, to raise the morale of Aperture Science scientists, employees, staff, administrators, janitorial staff and known associates:

Spruce Up the Work Area (and decorate it)

Acquire Holiday Trees (and decorate them)

Play Holiday Songs (and decorate them)

Sing Along to Holiday Songs (Eugene, you can just hum)

Bake Holiday Treats (and decorate them)


	2. Spruce up the Work Place

1. _Spruce Up the Work Area_

"Mr. Johnson?"

"Come on in, Caroline! Come on in!" The door pushed open and Caroline stepped in carefully, looking about warily at the tinsel and pine needles on the floor. "You know you never need to knock at _my_ door! _Mi casa et su casa_, after all!"

"Hello, Sir," Caroline said. She caught sight of him, and giggled.

"What's the matter, Caroline? I don't cut a rakish enough figure for you?"

"You're _very_ rakish, sir, but the Santa hat does… give one pause."

Cave threw the pompon at the end of his hat gallantly over his shoulder. "If it's good enough for ol' Kris Kringle, I say it's good enough for me."

"Indeed, Mr. Johnson."

"Now what can I do you for?" Cave sat on the edge of his desk and clasped his hands over one knee, while the other knee avoided the handmade wreath dangling precariously on the face of his desk.

"Well," Caroline consulted the file in her hand, "Mr. Johnson, Christmas trees have begun to materialize in the testing chambers."

Cave laughed. "Oh, they didn't _materialize_, you Scrooge, I had them put there!"

"I see… aluminum Christmas trees?"

"Yep!"

"With revolving lights that…" she checked her note again, "cycle red, blue, and green?"

"Wouldn't be aluminum Christmas trees without lights!"

"Of course, they are the… ah… the 'new, old-fashioned way' to celebrate the holiday," Caroline looked doubtful. "But I was wondering, why did you put them in the Test Chambers? And with such frequency? There's always one in sight, it seems."

"You really _are _a Scrooge, aren't you, Caroline?"

"I… I never really enjoyed Dickens, sir…"

"What kind of boss would I be, to make our noble volunteers struggle along in their tests without the slightest bit of Christmas cheer?"

"I'm just concerned," Caroline said, "That the Enrichment Center's atmosphere is not exactly… well, scientific with trees around."

"Caroline, look at the big picture. One, our test subjects will be cheered. Therefore, they'll test better. _But_, being as these are not _real_ trees, but aluminum fakes, they'll be reminded at every step that they're here to do a job! To run a test! So I don't think it'll really harm their performance – but cheer 'em up! We _are_ humane, after all," Cave settled back, and braced one shoe on his desk – toppling the wreath and sending it to the floor, followed by a stream of colorful expletives.

"Oh, dear – I'll help you, Mr. Johnson." Caroline and Cave knelt together on the floor, and replaced the wreath, and strung it again with the lost tinsel and scattered little ornaments. Caroline sat on her heels, holding the last little blue sphere in her hands. "Mr. Johnson," she said, "You know it's very important to me that our testing environment is consistent, and controlled."

"Oh, of course! I didn't mean to upset you!" Cave looked genuinely shocked at the prospect. He reached out to pat her on the shoulder. "I was just trying out something new, you know, for the holidays. But of course, of course, science needs some stability and order… hmm... Whaddya say we strike a bargain? Fifty fifty? You know you're the only one I ever compromise with," he said conspiratorially.

"I know, Mr. Johnson. Hmm." Caroline pursed her lips. "What if the trees were only in the last part of the testing chamber?"

"Oh… I see what you mean, Caroline. A reward. A little treat. Ha! It's brilliant!" He smacked his forehead. "Why didn't I think of that?"

"Don't smack your forehead, sir," Caroline said, as she helped him to his feet. "It kills brain cells."

"Right again, Caroline, right again… hum, next up we'll be boiling up figgy pudding for the volunteers. Well! If that lights a fire under their ass, no problem with me! Caroline, make it happen. Ah, and Caroline?"

"Yes, Mr. Johnson?" She turned to look at him, and was surprised when he descended on her like a six-foot abominable snowman, wrapped in a zany red-and-green sweater, and kissed her on the cheek. "_Sir!_"

"For my grumpiest little elf. Don't you hesitate to let me know if there's a thing I can do to make this place just your kind of jolly. You hear me?"

She blushed and looked down at her shoes. "Yes, Mr. Johnson. I'm not an elf…"

"Of course you're not. You're a Caroline. Now, go out there and do some science!"

Still very flustered, but trying very hard to get a lid on herself, she let herself out.


	3. Decorate a Tree

2. _Acquire a Tree_

It was the thirtieth of November. Doug Rattman had allowed two and a half hours to elapse since he took his medicine. He was letting his chemical, neurobiological schedule slip. He knew this. Soon the voices would appear at his back, the hovering whispering questing voices, that would tell him the things he didn't want to hear, things like _They'll find you_ and _She knows_ and _You'll be the only one left, and what will you do then_?

But he drowned out those voices with an angelic choir.

All right, so it was actually the cassette tape of the college choir that he'd bought at their concert last year, but it was the kind of classical, old world Christmas music that his mother and father had loved, even if there were a few off-key moments … This choir would help keep his brain activity on the straight and narrow, for as long as he needed it. And he wouldn't need it for long.

Soon the voices would come, the voices that came from deep within his own skull, but right now, he had his tools before him. He had… let's take stock… gold, red, white, dark green, bright yellow, royal purple, miscellaneous tubes of anonymous colors that he just happened to have and thought he might as well use up – in acrylic, all of the colors but blue and orange. It was good. It was good. He also had glitter, several sizes and types of brushes, and paper towels, to clean up, and sponges to make patterns. A Frisbee covered in aluminum foil. And he had a vast circle of green paper to work on, with its center and diameters carefully mapped out, and an oversized shirt to work in.

He had everything he needed.

He started the cassette over again, and turned the volume way up.

He'd spent years now, burying the voices, burying the fear as well as he could, with neuroleptics and diphenylbutylpiperidines and lovely antipsychotics, to inhibit and block and suppress and transmit, just to let him crawl out from under his bed by day, and try and face the world with a brain that ran on one neat approved track.

Just this once… just for this… he could let his mind just… go.

The first thing he needed was to create leaves. Obviously. He took his oldest paintbrush, the one that had bristles missing and jagged gaps in the row, and he dipped it into the dark green paint. He flew his brush in jagged rows, rising and falling like the rising of the sun and the running of the deer, until when he stood up and looked over it, the dark looked like shadows of pine, bringing the brighter green into sharp relief.

Good. He put that brush on the plate, no time to wash it now, and took up the small sponge. He dipped it in the white, letting it grow heavy with the color, and then rolled it over and over the green, like a garland of beads, dangling and hanging suspended in space, strengthening it again with white, letting the circle be unbroken like the word "Gloria," which when he was a child he remembered it seemed to go on for-ev-er. Gloria, bring the beads up, bring them around, gloria, spiral them up to the center of the circle, and it's complete, in exelsis deo.

Now his brain was on fire, and his hand, seizing the paintbrush and dipping it in red, was flying over the page in ways it had forgotten, or he'd thought forgotten. He'd doodled on post-it notes, trying desperately to bring a joy through his hand and onto the paper, but the drugs that kept him sane and kept his mind level drowned that joy, too, and now he was _free_—

Now, his hand was dashing and dancing, prancing and vexing, comic, a bit stupid, donning, and blitzing – huh, funny, he hadn't realized this album included Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. He took advantage of the peppy beat to blur out circle after circle, beautiful and beaming and nothing like the dripping red orbs that followed him in his nightmares. When the song ended, he dipped the littlest brush in white and spun the paper rapidly, bringing out highlights and gleams on the red circles.

As soon as Rudolph had received his socially approved happy ending as one of the collective, the brush fell with a clatter.

He took the purple pot of paint to him and drew a few little circles, but soon they gave way to elegant stars, eight pointed, their angles stretching deadly thin (beware, beware Doug, you know where this road leads), dangling in midair, in nothingness.

_Sire the night grows darker now, and the wind blows stronger_…

Okay, but just a little longer, he needed just a little longer, and besides there were more songs yet…

_Thou shall feel the winter's rage freeze thy blood less coldly…_

He took out the Frisbee covered with aluminum foil that passed for a palette with him, he blended the purple and the white and just a touch of sly turquoise, and when it was done he had surprise pink ("The surprising thing is, it's not pink!" he said out loud, and his own raucous laugh surprised him) which he drew in little curls and spirals, dangling down from the imaginary branches he could almost see poking out from the paper –

Then the black and white to make silver, and the silver made snowflakes, and each one was miraculous, a unique piece of art, and hark how the bells, sweet silver bells, all seem to say throw cares away –

Whoa. Hold back, Doug. Is it time?

_Hark how the bells, sweet silver bells_…

No, it's not. This tree needs more _shadows!_

_All seem to say, throw cares away…_

And once the shadows are established again, we'll draw more ornaments with just our palm prints! That will mean we're safe! And then we'll put glitter – glitter on everything!

_…Ding._

_Dong, ding._

_Dong!_

Applause. Silence.

_Whiiiiiiiiiiiiine_…

Click-clack.

The cassette was done.

Doug came back to his senses, such as they were. A fierce discipline rose up in him first – a part of him that had been promised to, and now intended that promise be honored – he ran for the bathroom, tugged open the bottle of his pills, and tried to take them dry, but his throat closed up, because deeper in his brain he didn't want this, he wanted to be _free_ – and he filled up a glass of water with painted hands shaking so hard that the water sloshed over the rim, and he forced the pills down and swallowed hard, gagging afterwards, sinking down on the floor of the tiny bathroom.

By degrees, the room stilled. The silence filled his ears. Yes. He hadn't delayed too long. His brain was back to normal.

He stood up slowly, popping the joints in his ankles and knees and fingers, a bad old habit of his. Yes, such wild abandon was like stepping outside on a cold, clear, windy winter's night – delightful, but only because you know it will end, because you know you'll be heading back inside soon, where it's warm and well lit…

_That's not true, Rat Man, you love the stars and you love the wind and you love the cold and you'd live there if you could –_

He refilled the glass, and took another long drink of water. He was shivering a little now, but it would pass. It would pass.

Finally, reluctantly, he toed his way to the living room floor, where his Christmas tree lay. He stood over it, and bent closer to it, and then, to his great surprise, he found himself smiling.

Over dark needle-like shadows, red orbs, purple stars, lilac spirals, and white snowflakes seemed to hover and float. Beads of iridescent white rolled over imaginary branches. The thing had sparkle and sheen, it had depth and appeal.

It was beautiful.

He went over to the cassette player, popped out the college choir, and turned on the radio.

Doug propped the "tree" up in his office cubicle, set up in a conical shape with a cardboard star on top. He spent more time at the office than at home, anyway.

Although he didn't really like the notion of other people seeing it (seeing the truth about his crazy, seeing what he was like when the lights were off and the winds were strong), he got to learn a lot about his coworkers by what they said. Some grunted, some asked why he didn't get a real tree, one man called it junk. But some asked, "Did you really make that? Wow! You have a real special gift!" or said, "I had no idea you could paint like that," or "Hey, wouldn't have spotted you for an artist!" with a kind smile and an appreciative look at the tree. His tree.

He had drawn it from the chaos inside him, and for twenty-four days, he had the art of his hand there, to remind him that not all that came from the chaos was wicked voices and senseless fear, but that it hid light within the darkness.


	4. Dance to Holiday Songs

3. _Playing Holiday Music_

_"Frosted windowpanes_…"

Blue and Orange stopped in their tracks and looked around. They might have taken the comment, coming over the speakers to their testing chamber, as an observation of the frosted glass, but observations about the testing chamber were not usually delivered so… musically…

"_Candles gleaming inside, painted candy canes_… _on the tree_…"

Blue glanced up at his gangly partner, to ask "What's up with this?"

But Orange was already caught under the nefarious spell, swaying from one spindly leg to another. Blue rolled his optic, and glared around to be on the lookout for any painted candy canes hiding candles in their depths.

"_Santa's on his way—_ BZZZZT"

"_Negative_," said the flat voice of the Genetic Lifeform and Disc Operating System. "_Santa is not on his way here. Ignore this music. This is not part of the test. It will soon be terminated_."

The music resumed. Blue was about to shrug his heavy shoulders and get on with it, but first he had to reach out and smack Orange's free hand, which was conducting an invisible orchestra. Blue bzzed at his partner, and Orange reluctantly followed him onward.

The rest of the song played out, words giving way to by an orchestral section, while they tested.

It had been a brief test, and Blue would have been quite happy to complete and leave it behind him… except, when they stood at the door, the words began over.

Blue _just_ had time to think, "Oh, no, not this again," when Orange suddenly put down her portal gun and started spinning around the floor, metal feet clicking in time to the music.

Blue drew his portal gun closer. The GLaDOS might do something terrible to Orange if she were caught disobeying – which she definitely was! – and Blue didn't like it when Orange got punished. Even if said punishment was immediately undone by the arrival of a newer, cleaner Orange. Dammit, the only person who was allowed to callously drop Orange into harm's way was Blue!

So Blue put down his gun and approached Orange, waving his hands to say "Cut it out, show's over," but Orange seemed to take his approach as a joining-in. Her orange optic lit up, and she seized his arms and made him whirl with her, _one_ two three _one _two three…

"_Merry Christmas, may your new year dreams come true_…"

Blue buzzed and chirped in great alarm. They were compounding their disobedience! Multiplying it by a factor of _one_ two three, _one _two three! That was going to spiral into humungous numbers! He despaired. Orange was past reason, past hope. Blue sighed.

Orange chirruped back at him, a merry reproach. The test was almost over, no reason they shouldn't try something a little new, have a little fun.

"_… And this song of mine, in three-quarter time, wishes you and yours, the same thing too…_"

The song played out to its conclusion. Orange let Blue go, optic beaming bright as an incineration chamber, beeping with happiness. Blue hesitated, then burred a low agreement. That had been fun.

Three jingle bell notes, then another song burst in on the airwaves:

"_GRANDMA GOT RUN OVER BY A REINDEER_…"

CRASH.

ZAP.

_fizzle_

Then, silence. By that point Blue and Orange had already resumed their places at the door to exit the chamber, optics wide, frames straight, and portal guns locked in death grips.

"_There. No more of that infernal music._" The door slid open.

Orange glanced over at her partner, and caught Blue's eye. She gave the thumbs up, and happily saw it returned before they entered the elevators.


	5. Go a-Caroling

4. _Caroling in a Department Singalong_

"_On the fifth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me…_"

"Fact: The 'The Twelve Days of Christmas' do not refer to the twelve days preceding Christmas, as is commonly believed."

"You've only said so _seven gorram times!_"

"You've been counting? Oh, Rick. You docare."

All was not merry and bright in the service hallway where two cores were cruising. One of them, his green optic glowering, said rather mutinously, "I haven't had a damn chance to commonly believe anything about that carol before you started spouting your facts… how can these beliefs be common if I don't believe 'em, hey?"

"It refers to the twelve days following Christmas, which culminate in the aptly named Twelfth Night, where young ladies are encouraged to dress up as men, and avoid Puritans in yellow stockings." The core beside him gave a side-eye with his single, mauve-colored eye, to see how this was being received. "Twelfth Night is, of course, a holdover from the pagan rites, when a young male of the tribe would face a reindeer in unarmed combat…"

"Hey! That ain't too shabby!"

"… and then, if he lived, be sacrificed ritually to bring back the summer. After eating a plate of beans."

"What? That's just… that's rotten. And _beans_? Imagine having _beans_ as your last meal…"

"Fact: I would rather not."

The green-optic core, who had styled himself 'Rick' one optimistic day, rolled his optic.

"_On the seventh day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, seven swans a-swimming_, _six geese a-laying_…"

"Fact: Swans and geese are extremely territorial. They would make very dangerous gifts if given to someone with no idea of how to care for them. Fortunately, they are also extremely delicious if properly prepared."

"_Four calling birds, three French hens, two turtle doves_…"

"The French hens would probably advise force-feeding the geese until their livers are appropriately tender, and then slaughtering them and –"

"Criminy, man! Have you no _respect_?"

There was silence, and in a huff, Rick steered himself further and faster along his management rail. He was not pleased to see the Fact Core catching up with him, and giving a sly, knowing look.

"I mean…" Rick said, hearing his inner fans beginning to whirr a little louder, which was never a good sign, that meant his natural machismo had gone past blustering, and even left the fine realm of bluffing behind, and it meant… he was _blushing_.

Loudly as his fans whirled, it couldn't drown out that smug little voice:

"Fact: You _like_ Christmas carols."

Rick shifted his optic away.

"You enjoy figgy-puddinged, jingle-belling, reindeer-gaming, partridge-in-a-pear-tree _Christmas carols_."

"Oh, come on! Like you haven't a guilty pleasure to your name… _Craig_."

The Fact Core grew very huffy. "Fact: Craig is the most perfect name in this history of nomenclature…"

"Oh, shut up and listen to the carols. Afterwards, we'll head down to the Aquatic Research Center and… I dunno… hunt a shark. And, and wrestle it. Yeah."

Craig lifted the lid of his optic, very expressively – but Rick wasn't paying attention to his expressions. He stared forward with a contemplating look as the carol continued. Gruffly, he started to hum… "_On the twelfth day of Christmas_…"


	6. Bake Cookies

_5. Bake Holiday Treats_

Chell had made cookies before, but usually from a mix, or from dough sold chilled. But Wheatley had been begging her to make cookies like what they saw on the cover of the magazine – elaborate, beautiful, festive, decorative – so, for the holidays, Chell decided she would try. She bought the magazine, and studied their instructions to the letter, and followed each step carefully.

(All-purpose flour, sift it so that it's not tough; add unsweetened cocoa, powdered ginger, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, three quarters of a _teaspoon_, not a tablespoon, but a _teaspoon_, of baking soda…)

Chell liked recipes. Despite her time in the Enrichment Center, she still enjoyed having an ordered list of what to do, precise instructions, a timeframe, and a list of ingredients – at least, when it came to preparing food. After the hunger in the vast grey caverns, she wouldn't take food for granted ever again. And baking was the most scientific of all cooking arts – these cookies could be ruined if she put in a tablespoon, rather than a teaspoon, of baking soda, or even seized the baking powder instead, without looking, in a careless, clumsy moment.

This is why she did not allow Wheatley to help.

(Combine the dry ingredients; cream the butter and sugar together in a separate bowl, add molasses, add dry ingredients. Knead the dough gently, chill in the refrigerator.)

Chell cleaned up while the dough chilled. From outside she heard Wheatley huffing and puffing as he shoveled snow away from the front walk, grumbling occasionally about fidgety wrists or cold sensitive fingers, you never had to deal with muddles like that when you were a core, no-sir-ee.

(When the dough is firm, take it out of the refrigerator. roll it out flat, and cut out shapes. Stars. Trees. Ornaments. Not reindeer; their little legs and antlers burn up crispy. A small batch of careful snowflakes, sugar cookies prepared yesterday.

Bake in the oven at three hundred and fifty degrees, turn the cookies around when they're halfway through, and take a cup of coffee while they bake. Ruminate on your life.)

She sipped her coffee, letting the precise patterns of her thoughts fade away, dissolve like sifted flour. Wheatley was still keeping up his half-joking litany of laments against the cold. No – she listened more closely. He had stopped to talk to one of their neighbors, and had gotten caught up in relating some yarn about what had happened when he got the milk. He might finish shoveling the snow by dark. Then again, maybe he might not.

The life that Chell and Wheatley had made together was precarious, in her eyes. There was so much waiting to go wrong, at the first opportunity, and it looked to her like she was the one to take care of it, always with the precision of a baker.

Wheatley's voice grew alarmed – "Oy, mate! I've got this whole walk to finish up – Chell asked me special, you know? Gotta dash – gotta shovel, that is, gotta shovel!" The air then filled with the crescendoing sound of snow zooming through the air in frenzied flurries.

Wheatley's affection for her – oh, Chell, be honest, say _love_, his love for her – was ill-disciplined, imprecise, and loud. He didn't fit into the organized life she'd led before he came along; his very arrival had been unforeseeable and strange.

(Check to see that your cookies have baked long enough, but be careful – their color will make it harder to tell, with the gingerbread.

Take them out of the oven, let them cool, and decorate.)

Chell took out her readymade frosting, in several bowls according to size, from the fridge. She lined up the sprinkles in their bowls, took out the different pipes and tubes and knives. She heard Wheatley say, from the front door, "Neighbor needs a hand with his tree – I'll help him out, shouldn't be a minute, be back soon!"

There was a silence, and a chill breeze, and then a scramble, a shout of "SORRY!" and then Chell heard the front door close.

She smiled, and had to quash a spasm of annoyance. She focused on the frosting. Just the right amount on the knife – spread on the cookies so that each edge was perfect, and even… one cookie was perfect, then the next would be perfect, and the next, and the next. All the little trees were green, and all the little ornaments were red, and all the little stars were bright yellow, and she pushed the sprinkles into each one carefully, with just the right amount of pressure.

Some days, she honestly wasn't even sure if she loved Wheatley. She could get so mad at him, irritated at him over the slightest things. There wasn't that warm, fuzzy, gooshy feeling she thought people in love were supposed to feel… she didn't overflow with forgiveness, she wasn't preoccupied with him every waking minute, she wasn't sure that she would push him out of the way of a speeding train… well, with Wheatley you never knew, his instincts might kick in at the last minute and gift him with brief, Olympian abilities…

Even here, the cookies she was making for him were orderly and passionless. They looked just like the ones on the magazine cover – better, even. Every sprinkle was in place, there was always the perfect amount of frosting, and each frosting was the perfect color. She was testing herself against what the magazine made, and she was winning, and that gave her satisfaction.

Testing herself.

With _cookies_.

What was wrong with her?

She put down the frosting knife and leaned against the counter, stymied, unsure where to think next.

The front door opened and shut again. "I'm home!" She heard Wheatley hanging up his coat, his scarf, and scraping off his snow-covered boots. He entered the kitchen, smelling a little like pine sap. "What a nightmare that tree was, I tell you, it had it in for me – wait, what's this?" He stopped and stared. "Are these the cookies?"

Chell nodded at the inane question.

"Oh, _wow_, Chell, just, just _wow!_ You're amazing! These are perfect! They're splendid, Chell! We should have a party just to show these off – we should keep these cookies in a glass case, they're just too perfect to eat! You're the most amazing – _mmph!_"

Chell grinned when he started to talk, and grinned a little further, and took up a perfect, white-and-blue snowflake cookie, reached up, and shoved it unceremoniously into his mouth. He protested at first having to eat her art, but then his stern expression melted as he chewed and swallowed.

"Oh, wow, they taste _even better_! How do you even do that? You're so marvelous!" He leaned back, out of words for at least a few seconds, his blue eyes expressive as the rest of him: '_How did I ever deserve someone as marvelous as you_?'

Chell beamed, feeling suddenly flustered. The ruminations of her life fell quiet as she stood up on tiptoe and kissed him. He kissed her back, tasting like cookie crumbs and winter air. When they broke up, he demolished the peaceful moment by saying, "And I mean it about that party, did you want to feed an army here? We could!"

He broke up the peace and brought in something she liked even better. And listening to his voice wash over her, she felt such joy and warmth, such simple delight, that it seemed to crystallize in a voice inside her, repeating simply, '_Yes, this is love, this is what love is, yes, this is it._'


End file.
